I was born in Fujian, China and raised in Hong Kong before coming to the United States for graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. My grandfather was a country doctor, trained by an English missionary physician who handed the small hospital in the rural village to my grandfather. In Hong Kong, I attended the Diocesan Girls’ School, founded by the Anglican church.
Christianity has been an integral part of my upbringing, but I was not baptized until 2010, years after my husband Bob and I joined the Los Altos United Methodist Church, where our daughter Andrea was a member of the Starfire youth choir. In 2016, we began looking for a church closer to home, in Palo Alto. Through a series of coincidences, we ended up at St. Mark’s one Sunday morning. We never looked back.
What drew me to St. Mark’s initially was the music, the sanctuary, and the incredible intellect of our clergy and leadership. Very quickly, I began to discover the community—filled with purpose, caring, and unconditional dedication to service. And as it turns out, the community became a lifeline during the pandemic, when I felt nourished on spiritual and personal levels, with the many opportunities to connect and learn from our leadership and fellow parishioners.
Following a career in healthcare advertising, much of my time today is dedicated to Bob’s Last Marathon Foundation, a non-profit organization I started to develop communication programs, leading with the Bob’s Last Marathon podcast, to support families and friends of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to serve as a member of the Vestry. As a relative new member, I feel privileged for this opportunity to learn and grow, and I look forward to contributing to St. Mark’s as a grandmother, a businesswoman and a first-generation immigrant.